Discharge papers are in great shape. I haven't got to see the Lady Columbia yet in person because my dad just revived it on the mail from a distant cousin who thought my grandfather would have wanted me to have it.

PBS did a great series, "The Great War". You should see all the BS propaganda the naive US population was fed back then. Oh, and we got that awesome "Espionage Act" out of it - the one they went after Thomas Drake with. Still on the books, yay freedom.

The Public awareness/boondoggle campaign starts way before the actual conflict is ignited. In the the past it was pretty easy to tell some half truths and some outright lies to get the people and their money behind a war with a simple news paper article and that has been well documented.

My fears are that nowadays information is everywhere and nowhere but to get the support of a nation with an enormous amount of information and connections around the world through Social Media, the bigger the misinformation campaign must be. One example, We were told before going into Kuwait that Babies were being tossed out onto the floor of hospitals to tug at our heart strings to gain support and later we all learned this was not true. We all know their have been many many more.

What will be done to get us into the next big one NK/Russia/China/Iran is the question. I am not a big conspiracy guy but the use of false flag ops and fake news campaigns have been used to take us into wars many times and that is verifible throughout the last 120 years or so.

The ante needs to keep up with the Social Media of the inter-webs reach by getting bigger and bolder for each next new war.

No treaty or agreement required Britain to enter the war, they entered it because they thought t hey could win quickly and at Germany expense.

I don't think it was as simple as all that.

Britain was kind of caught in a catch 22.

If Germany won the war Britain was faced with the possibility, if France was defeated, of German control of the Low Countries and the Belgian ports and a hostile navy essentially on her doorstep.

Similarly, if Germany defeated Russia then Britain faced the prospect of German control of the Dardanelles and the German navy sailing around the Mediterranean with impunity, strengthening Germany's imperial aspirations in North Africa.

On the other hand, if Britain stayed out of the war and France/Russia won then as the third, and non-participating, member of the Triple Entente she was going to be in a really bad place as far as those frenemies were concerned.

Either way, the balance of power on the continent was going to shift in a manner unfavorable to British interests and possibly be consolidated in the hands of a Germany which was clearly the power in its acendency.

It was also, in the minds of many Brits, following the Germany violation of Belgian neutrality, the right and "British" thing to do.

I think British entry in to the war was as much a consequence of national defense/economic realpolitik as it was a matter of "Tallyho! lets go fuck some shit up real quick".

If Germany won the war Britain was faced with the possibility, if France was defeated, of German control of the Low Countries and the Belgian ports and a hostile navy essentially on her doorstep.

Similarly, if Germany defeated Russia then Britain faced the prospect of German control of the Dardanelles and the German navy sailing around the Mediterranean with impunity, strengthening Germany's imperial aspirations in North Africa.

On the other hand, if Britain stayed out of the war and France/Russia won then as the third, and non-participating, member of the Triple Entente she was going to be in a really bad place as far as those frenemies were concerned.

Either way, the balance of power on the continent was going to shift in a manner unfavorable to British interests and possibly be consolidated in the hands of a Germany which was clearly the power in its acendency.

It was also, in the minds of many Brits, following the Germany violation of Belgian neutrality, the right and "British" thing to do.

I think British entry in to the war was as much a consequence of national defense/economic realpolitik as it was a matter of "Tallyho! lets go fuck some shit up real quick".

I agree with you on the general idea of concern about the balance of power, and that concern would have existed both within Europe and (because of the Empire/colonies) outside of Europe. But part of the motivation for British entry was a sense among senior officials, built in the decade before the war, that such a war would be 'different,' because Britain had made particular plans to go after Germany's economy at the beginning with such a level of ferocity that Germany's mobilization would be disrupted. It was the Royal Navy's plans for that economic armageddon that generated the idea that war would be swift and "over by Christmas." The politicians were unwilling to countenance the true costs on Britain of that strategy--namely, the blowback damage to Britain's banking, shipping, and trading systems. In retrospect, that price (steep as it seemed in 1914) would have been a pittance compared to what came to pass.

If you have the time and inclination (this is to everyone) a solid academic work in this area is Nicholas Lambert, Planning Armageddon. In short, the British understood the German economy was overleveraged, and upon declaration of war Britain could stop shipping, stop financing commercial interactions, and shut down German international communications and put Germany into a death spiral (where its economy would grind to a halt) within a matter of weeks. That way it wouldn't be able to support the army in the field, because neither the needed raw inputs (things Germany didn't have herself) nor a functioning economy for the home front would be available. By way of comparison, imagine having your credit card frozen, your cell phone stolen, and your Amazon shipments (or orders from Cheaper than Dirt) redirected, all at once just before your big trip.

Last edited by Armitage12; 16 January 2018 at 17:39.
Reason: Extra detail.

On the one hand the reasons necessitating British entry in to the war (such as they were) and on the other her strategy for winning the war (such as it was).

Perhaps if Britain knew (how could she possibly have) the true cost of the war and the inadequacy of her financial strangulation strategy then maybe the reasons wouldn't have been good enough.

On the other side of the line, Germany thought that she was going to roll over France just as quickly (6 weeks).

Never counted counted on a tenacious Belgian defense that would hold out for a month allowing the French/BEF to gather enough of a force to successfully attack and drive the Germans in to retreat at First Marne.

I think everyone was convinced that their attack/defense would be a cake walk.

Second that. The economical aspect is in fact what drives most wars, and is sometimes sidelined. WWI proved that economic warfare, just like any other type of waging war, has its uses...and misuses. Lambert's theses are IMO very sound.

WWI made great impact on plastic surgery. Of course there's one famous name linked to this, and that name is Sir Harold Gillies.

As with all pioneers, Gillies had an internal drive that pushed him towards the less-explored areas of medicine. Andrew Bamji made a great article on this man in Trauma magazine in 2006. This man invented lots of techniques and methods of facial reconstruction. He was a real visionary, not afraid of experimenting and trying new ideas. He had some failures, also many glaring successes - the uniqueness of him was that he tried his best to rebuild the destroyed faces instead of just masking them. He wanted to help the veterans regain their health and dignity instead of letting them hide behind masks or in their houses, afraid to go out in fear of people not accepting them.

I agree with you on the general idea of concern about the balance of power, and that concern would have existed both within Europe and (because of the Empire/colonies) outside of Europe. But part of the motivation for British entry was a sense among senior officials, built in the decade before the war, that such a war would be 'different,' because Britain had made particular plans to go after Germany's economy at the beginning with such a level of ferocity that Germany's mobilization would be disrupted. It was the Royal Navy's plans for that economic armageddon that generated the idea that war would be swift and "over by Christmas." The politicians were unwilling to countenance the true costs on Britain of that strategy--namely, the blowback damage to Britain's banking, shipping, and trading systems. In retrospect, that price (steep as it seemed in 1914) would have been a pittance compared to what came to pass.

If you have the time and inclination (this is to everyone) a solid academic work in this area is Nicholas Lambert, Planning Armageddon. In short, the British understood the German economy was overleveraged, and upon declaration of war Britain could stop shipping, stop financing commercial interactions, and shut down German international communications and put Germany into a death spiral (where its economy would grind to a halt) within a matter of weeks. That way it wouldn't be able to support the army in the field, because neither the needed raw inputs (things Germany didn't have herself) nor a functioning economy for the home front would be available. By way of comparison, imagine having your credit card frozen, your cell phone stolen, and your Amazon shipments (or orders from Cheaper than Dirt) redirected, all at once just before your big trip.

The perfidious Albionese had been fucking about in Continental politics since before Napoleon, so no pity for the limies.

Too bad all their calculations were blown out by the Haber Process and unifying German nationalism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process

That is always the real trick to intelligence analysis, isn't it? Actually understanding your enemies and what their true weakness and motivations are. In almost all cases, the analyst(understandably) projects their own desires, fears and motivations onto their enemies, messing up the whole thing. S/F....Ken M

__________________"If you remember nothing else about what Iím about to consider here, remember this: the one and only reason politicians, bureaucrats, and policemen want to take your weapons away from you is so that they can do things to you that they couldnít do if you still had your weapons."ó L. Neil Smith

It's hard to understand the boldness and perfidy coupled with short-sightedness of the British Empire (of the "imperial century" that lasted till the Great War of 1914 broke out) without factoring in their place in the grand scheme of things then. They were so sure of themselves while already rotting from within that their decision to spark a war in hopes of getting economic results never surprised me.

It was a planet-spanning empire, for crissakes. They thought that their way was the way.
Enter first world war, then second world war and reshuffling of the pieces on the global chessboard.

A thing to add. For anyone interested in reading on the topic of WWI, several books come to mind.

First would be the John Keegan and his The First World War
trailed by 1914 - 1918: The History Of The First World War by David Stevenson.
G. J. Meyer wrote A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918 which is IMO also good.
Another gem I enjoyed was the Hell's Observer: The Epic Wartime Journal of Private William J. Graham, American Expeditionary Forces.
And for a view on the other side, so to speak, John K.Rieth and his Imperial Germany's Iron Regiment of the First World War: War Memories of Service With Infantry Regiment 169 - 1914/1918 is an awesome account of how it looked from the German side (namely, the Baden's Infantry Regiment 169 - the titular Iron Regiment).

For anyone so inclined the National Library of Scotland has prepared an excellent tool for analysis and referencing in regards to WWI trenches. It's a selection of original WWI military maps that can be superimposed on modern satellite map. It's a valuable tool not only for teachers and historians but also for anyone who's interested in WWI.

__________________
"I believe that a knife should be bright and highly polished for the reason that 20% of the fight is lost by not striking awe in the mind of the victim that a flashing knife gives."
William Fairbairn